Start with what the Saab 99 is: a 2/4-door saloon / 3/5-door combi coupé with 1709 , built from 1968 to 1984, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. What it meant takes a little longer. The shape is credited to Sixten Sason.
How it came about
The Saab 99 is a car produced by Swedish manufacturer Saab from 1968 to 1984, their first foray into a larger class than the Saab 96. While considered a large family car in Scandinavia, it was marketed as a niche compact executive car in most other markets. It was manufactured both in Sweden and Finland and was succeeded by the Saab 900, although the 99 continued to be produced alongside its successor. The Saab 90, an updated, less complex version using many 900 parts took over from the 99 in late 1984.
The hardware
The engine is 1709 other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Drive goes through a 4/5-speed manual / 3-speed Borg-Warner 35 automatic. The layout matters: the engine drives the front wheels, the packaging choice that gives a small car a big cabin. The wheelbase is 2473 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Family and rivals
In the Saab Automobile line-up the Saab 99 has a clear place: it replaced the None; it handed the line to the Saab 90 / Saab 900; the factory was Trollhättan. The cars a buyer would have weighed it against include the Toyota Hilux, the Peugeot 504, the Pontiac Firebird. Its Saab Automobile stablemates include the Saab 60 and the Saab 600.
Owning one today
There is no federal ownership record for the Saab 99 — it predates the complaint database or was never sold in the United States — so MotorJury publishes no running-cost figure for it. For a car of this age the price is set by the collector market and the condition of the individual example, not by a formula.